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The Ne'er-Do-Well, a novel by Rex Beach |
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Chapter 27. A Question |
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_ CHAPTER XXVII. A QUESTION Edith Cortlandt did not retire immediately upon her return from the ball. Her anger at Anthony's behavior kept her wakeful, and the night had turned off so dead and humid that sleep was in any case a doubtful possibility. It was the lifeless period between seasons when the trades had died out, or, at best, veered about bafflingly, too faint to offer relief. The cooling rains had not set in as yet, and a great blanket of heat wrapped the city in its smothering folds. The air was still and tainted, like that of a sick-room. Through Mrs. Cortlandt's open windows came hardly a sound; even from the sea below rose only a faint hissing, as if the rocks at the water's edge were superheated. Earlier in the evening the temperature had been bearable, but now it had reached an intensity to strain tired nerves to the snapping-point. It was the sort of night in which ailing children die and strong minds feel the burden of living. No relief was to be had, and the slightest physical effort was a misery. She was still sitting there at a late hour when she heard the outside door close and Cortlandt's footsteps mounting the stairs. She was glad he had his own room and never entered hers at such an hour, for even to talk with him in her present state of mind and body would have been more than she could bear. She was unreasonably annoyed, therefore, when he came boldly into her chamber without even knocking, for all the world like a welcome lover. To conceal her irritation, she kept her face turned from him and continued fanning herself listlessly. She was reclining in a wicker chair, lightly clad in a filmy silk negligee, which she mechanically drew closer. "Rather late for good-nights," she said, coldly. "I've just come from Anthony's supper-party." His voice made her look round sharply. She saw that his linen, ordinarily stiff and immaculate, was sodden and crumpled, his collar limp, his forehead glistening with drops of moisture. She could not remember ever having seen him in such a state. His appearance affected her queerly. In him this dishevelment was shocking. "What ails you, Stephen?" she cried. "Have you been drinking?" "No. I didn't drink much. I brought you something." He took the loving-cup from its flannel bag and set it upon the table. "They gave me this." "It is very pretty, though I don't care for such things." "And this too." He tossed the watch with its enamelled monogram into her lap. "Ah! That's very handsome." "Yes, I thought you'd like it; it's from Anthony." He laughed, then shuddered, as though a cold wind had bitten through his sodden garments. "Why--you seem excited over these souvenirs. You surely expected--" He broke in--a thing he rarely did while she was speaking: "Anthony made a speech when he gave it to me--a very nice speech, full of friendship and love and gratitude." He repeated Kirk's words as he remembered them, "What do you think of that?" "I think he expressed himself very frankly. But why do you tell me now, when the morning will do just as well? I'm prostrated with this heat." "He actually acknowledged his debt in public." Mrs. Cortlandt's eyes widened. This was not the man she knew. At this moment he was actually insistent, almost overbearing, and he was regarding her with that same ironical sneer that had roused her anger earlier in the evening. "Well, come to the point," she cried, irritably. "I don't understand what you are getting at. If you didn't wish to accept anything from him, why did you go?" He began to chuckle, apparently without reason. His shoulders shook, feebly at first, then more violently; his flat chest heaved, and he hiccoughed as if from physical weakness. It was alarming, and she rose, staring at him affrightedly. The sight of her increased his mirthless laughter. He continued to shudder and shake in uncontrollable hysteria, but his eyes were bright and watchful. "Oh, I--I--took it all in--I let him p-put the noose around his own neck and tie the knot. Then I hung him." His convulsive giggling was terrible, forecasting, as it did, his immediate breakdown. "Stephen!" she exclaimed, in a shocked tone, convinced that his mind was going. "You are ill, you need a doctor. I will call Joceel." She laid her hand on his arm. But he sniggered: "N-no! No! I'm all right. I t-t-t-t--" A stuttering-fit seized him; then, with an effort of will, he calmed himself. "Don't think I'm crazy. I was never more sane, never cooler, in here." He tapped his head with his finger. "But I'm tired, that's all, tired of waiting." "Won't you go to your room and let me call a doctor?" "Not yet. Wait! He told them what I had done for him, how I'd made a man of him when he was broke and friendless, how I'd taken him into my home like one of my family, and then I went him one better. I acknowledged it all and made them hear it from my lips too. Then--" He paused, and she steeled herself to witness another spectacle of his pitiable loss of self-control. But instead he grew icy and corpse-like, with lips drawn back in a grin. "What do you think I said? Can't you guess? I couldn't let him get away with that, could I? I played with him the way you have played with me. Think!" Her face went suddenly ashen. He stood before her grimly triumphant, enjoying his sense of mastery and deliberately prolonging her suspense. "Well, I told him before them all that I intended to give him something in return, and I did. I--gave--him--YOU." She stared at him uncomprehendingly. He nodded. "I said he'd had you from the first and that now I'd give you to him." She gave an unintelligible cry, standing now, as if petrified. He went on: "I knew all the time that I was in the way, but my work is done at last, so I'll step out. But--you both got more than you bargained for, didn't you?" "God! You didn't tell him that? You didn't say THAT--before those men! Oh-h!" She shrank back, drawing the gauzy silk robe closer about her breast. Her hands were shaking, her hair, which had fallen free when she rose, cascaded about her neck and shoulders. She let her eyes wander about the room as if to assure herself that this was not some hideous nightmare. Then she roused to sudden action. Seizing him by the shoulders she shook him roughly with far more than her natural strength, voicing furious words which neither of them understood. "Oh, I did it," he declared. "He's yours now. You can have him. He's been your lover--" She flung him away from her so violently that he nearly fell. "It's a lie! You know it's a lie!" "It's true. I'm no fool." She beat her hands together distractedly, "What have you done? What will those men think? Listen! You must stop them quickly. Tell them it's not so." He seemed not to hear her. "I'm going away to-morrow," he said, "but I'll never divorce you, no matter what you do; and I won't let you divorce me, either. No, no! Take him now, if you want him, but you'll never be able to marry him until I'm gone. And I won't die soon--I promise you that, I'm going to live." "You can't go--" "There's a boat to-morrow." "Don't you see you must stay and explain to those men? My God! They'll think you spoke the truth; they'll BELIEVE what you said." "Of course they will," he chattered, shrilly. "That's why I did it in that way. No matter what you or he or I can do or say now, they'll believe it forever. It came to me like a flash of light, and I saw what it meant all in a minute. Do YOU understand what it means, eh? Listen! No matter how you behave, they'll know. They won't say anything, but they'll know, and you can't stand that, can you? Even if you could fool me once more against the evidence of my own eyes and ears, and convince me that your lies are true, it wouldn't do any good with them." "'Evidence!' You have no evidence." "No? What about that night at Taboga? You were mad over the fellow then, but you didn't think I saw. That day I caught you together in the jungle--have you forgotten that? Didn't you think it strange that I should be the one to discover you? Oh, I pretended to be blind, but I followed you everywhere I could, and I kept my eyes open." "You saw nothing, for there was nothing." "He's been with you day and night. You have been together constantly, and I knew what was going on. But I waited, because I wasn't strong enough to revolt--until to-night. Oh, but to-night I was strong! Something gave me courage." In all their married life she had never known him to show such stubborn force. He was like granite, and the unbelievable change in him, upsetting all her preconceived notions of the man, appalled her. There had been times in the past when they had clashed, but he had never really matched his will with hers, and she had judged him weak and spiritless. Now, therefore, failing to dominate him as usual, she was filled with a strange feeling of helplessness and terror. "You had no right to accept such evidence," she stormed. "Bah! Why try to fool me? I have your own words for it. The other afternoon I came home sick--with my head. I was on the gallery outside when you were pleading with him, and I heard it all. You talked that night about Taboga, your guilty kisses and other things; you acknowledged everything. But he was growing tired of you. That, you know, makes it all the more effective." He smiled in an agonized fury. "You--cur!" she cried, with the fury of one beating barehanded at a barred door. "You had no right to do such a thing even if I were guilty." "Right? Aren't you my wife?" The look she gave him was heavy with loathing. "That means nothing with us. I never loved you, and you know it. You know, too, why I married you. I made no secret of it at the time. You had what I wanted, and I had what you wanted; but you were content with the bargain because I gave you money, position, and power. I never promised anything more than that. I made you into something like a man. You never could have succeeded without me. All you have is due to me--even your reputation in the service. Your success, your influence, it is all mine, and the only thing you gave me was a name; any other would have done as well." He shrank a little under this tirade, despite his exaltation. "Marriage!" she continued, in bitter scorn. "A priest mumbled something over us, but it meant nothing then or now. I have tolerated you because you were useful. I have carried you with me as I carry a maid or a butler. I bought a manikin and dressed it up and put breath into it for my own convenience, and I owe you nothing, do you understand--nothing! The debt is all on your side, as you and I and all the world know." "Who made me a manikin?" he demanded, with womanish fury, a fury that had been striving for utterance these many years. "I had ambitions and hopes and ability once--not much, perhaps, but enough--before you married me. I was nothing great, but I was getting along. I had confidence, too, but you took it away from me. You--you absorbed me. You had your father's brain, and it was too big for me; it overshadowed mine. In a way you were a vampire; for what I had you drained me of. At first it was terrible to feel that I was inferior, but I loved you, and although I had some pride--" He choked an instant and threw back her incredulous stare defiantly. "I let myself be eliminated. You thought you were doing me a favor when you put me forward as a figurehead, but to me it was a tragedy. I COULDN'T HELP LETTING YOU DO IT. Do you realize what that means to a fellow? I quit fighting for my own individuality, I became colored by you, I took on your ways, your habits, your mental traits, and--all the time I knew what was happening. God! How I struggled to remain Stephen Cortlandt, but it would have taken a BIG man to mould you to his ways, and I was only average. I began to do your work in your particular style; I forgot my ambitions and my dreams and took up yours. That's what I fell to, and all the time I KNEW it, and--and all the time I knew you neither cared nor understood. My only consolation was the thought that even though you never had loved me and never could, you at least respected our relation. I clung to that miserably, for it was all I had left, all that made me seem like a man. And yet you took away even that. I tried to rebel, but I had been drugged too long. You saw Anthony, and he had the things I lack; you found you were not a machine, but a living woman. He discovered the secret I had wasted away in searching for, and you rewarded him. Oh, I saw the change in you quickly enough, and if I'd been a man instead of what I was, I'd have--but I wasn't. I went spying around like a woman, hating myself for permitting it to go on, but lacking strength to stop it. But to-night, when he got up before those other men and dangled my shame before my eyes, I had enough manhood left in me to strike back. Thank God for that at least! Maybe it's not too late yet; maybe if I get away from you and try--" His voice died out weakly; in his face there was a miserable half-gleam of hope. "I never knew you felt like that. I never knew you COULD feel that way," she said, in a colorless voice. "But you made a terrible mistake." "Do you mean to say you don't love him?" "No, I have loved him for a long time--I can't remember when it began." She spoke very listlessly, looking past him as if at a long-familiar picture which she was tired of contemplating. "I never knew what love was before; I never even dreamed. I'd give my life right now--to undo what you have done, just for his sake, for he is innocent. Oh, don't sneer; it's true. He loves the Garavel girl, and wants to marry her." "I know all that. I overheard you in the parlor below." "Listen, please! I don't remember what I said then, and it doesn't matter; you took too much for granted. We must talk plainly now, before"--she pressed her palms to her temples as if they were bursting--"before it becomes impossible. I never lied to you, Stephen. Is that true?" "I used to think so." "I'm going to tell you the whole truth now without sparing myself. It began, I think, at Taboga, that night when he kissed me. It was the only time he ever did such a thing. It was dark, we were alone, I was frightened, and it was purely impulse on his part. But it woke me up, and all at once I knew how much he meant to me. I would have yielded utterly to him then if he had let me, but he was panic-stricken. He spoke of you, he apologized; I never saw a man in more misery. When I had time to realize the truth I tried to fight it off. But it was no use, and at last I gave up. After that I put myself in his way deliberately. I offered him opportunities continually, but he never seemed to see them. That day in the jungle I was desperate at his indifference, and I drove the horses away when he wasn't looking. I struck them with my crop--and I actually threw myself at him as boldly as I could, regardless of consequences. But he was like ice; he was speaking of you when you came. It has always been the same. When I discovered that he cared for that girl--well, if you overheard you must know. I frightened Garavel into dismissing him, and I set out to break him, just to show him that he needed me. To-night I offered to divorce you and make him all and more than I've made you, but he scorned me. That's the truth, Stephen. If we believed in oaths, I would swear it." No one who knew the woman could have disbelieved her, and to the husband who knew her every mental and moral trait this bald, hopeless confession came as a crushing anti-climax to his great effort. It left him not the slightest doubt that she was honest. He said, dully, in a feeble attempt to right himself: "You are shielding him. You want to make me out wrong." But she knew he knew. "Those are the facts. Heaven knows they are bad enough, but they are by no means so bad as you thought. And I'm your wife, Stephen. That thing you did was brutal; those men will talk. I was guilty, no doubt, in my thoughts, but I'm young, and you have no right to blight my life and my reputation--yes, and yours--by a thing like that. We will have to meet those men. What are you going to do?" "I don't know," he said. "In all my life I never felt but one moment of power, and that, it seems, was false. For years I have longed to show myself a man, and now--what have I done? What have I done? I am no monster." He moaned and sank limply into a chair, folding together in an attitude of dejection that was pitiful. He raised his head and broke out at her in a last spasm of desperation, as a dying ember flares even while it crumbles. "My God! why couldn't you be consistent? Why did you go half-way? Why couldn't you be all good or all bad and save me this?" "All women are half good and half bad." "I can't blame you for not loving me, I suppose," he mumbled. "No woman of your kind could love a man like me." "Those men!" she said, in a way that made him writhe. "Wait until I--think. I must think." "You can't think now, and neither can I." "We must." He wrung his hands. "They'll never believe me--" There was a long silence. "Perhaps in the morning we can see a way out." "That's it." He nodded. "You go to bed and I'll think. I'm trying to think now, but this heat is suffocating me and my head is tired." He brushed a hand feebly across his brow. "If it would only rain I--could think better." "Yes, and we must think of Anthony, too. No matter how you blame me, you must realize that he was innocent, and perhaps, after all, he is the one that you wronged deepest. He will have to meet those men, and they were his friends." Despite the breathless oppression of the night, she shivered. "_I_ never can meet them now, and I don't see how you will dare to, knowing that you were wrong." "Don't!" he pleaded. "The other was bad enough, but this--Tell me what to do!" "I can't. I don't know myself. All I can see is that those men will never cease to believe, no matter what you tell them." She groped her way to the window, but there was no relief even in the open air. By-and-by she heard him sigh, then rise and say "Good- night." As she prepared for bed an hour later she heard him still stirring about in his quarters, but afterward, as she lay staring into the black night, she was so busied with the frightful fancies that swarmed about her that she did not detect his cautious footsteps when he stole out of his chamber, closing the door softly behind him. _ |
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